Went to the Driver's Edge at TWS with a passenger seat this past weekend. Wanted to get some seat time and learn how to go faster.

At some point late into Day 1 my instructor informs me that smoke is filling the cabin, so I pull off the front straight and get ready to egress. Undo the hans and look down to see trans fluid all over the shifter boot.

Get the car up on stands and find fluid all over the back of the transmission from the seal. Also found that my torque arm was pretzelled, probably from a bad downshift/axle hop early in the first session.

Replace the torque arm and seal, try again on day 2. Starts smoking again on the front straight above 110-115 or so.

I get home Sunday, pull the tailshaft off the trans, and the output shaft bushing falls right out. Turns out it had just walked it out. Replaced the bushing with a different style (one piece, non bronze), used loctite and a press this time, got car back together Monday night, and dropped it off at the dyno Tuesday morning. They took it up to 150mph a few times, no leaks/vibrations.

I'm not sure if the bent torque arm (or the incident that caused it) damaged/walked my output shaft bushing, but the different type of bushing and the use of loctite should hopefully make it last longer than one year this time.